Sitting in a brightly lit classroom preparing to watch a film about sex trafficking had me feeling slightly uneasy. As much as I delve into the gritty reality of urban city life and understand the fustration of being poor, being exposed to prostitution is not something that I like looking at. This acknowledgement made me the perfect candidate to open my eyes and see what some girls have to go through in order to please the men in this world.

The first thing I notice about Mimi Chakarova is her eyes, they look like they have seen a lot and have a nervous disposition. Mimi is the photo journalist who put together the film in order to come to terms with the reality of Eastern European women working in the sex industry. She felt that there had to be a reason as to why so many young girls were disappearing from idyllic countrysides and ending up in places like Istanbal in Turkey.

We only watched 30 minutes of the film but from the start, I was completely gripped by the rawness of the interviewees. One girl spoke about how she jumped out of a window in an attempt to take her life, only to wake up with a broken leg and back in the same room that she tried to escape from. Her pimp continued to use her until her wounds got really bad.

Mimi describes how she entered the mouth of the wolf to tell this story. By dressing up, she managed to secretly record the nightclubs of Istanbal in order to show what the girls go through. She wanted to face the reality and show it in an honest way.

The ending of the film does not have a happy ending, when questioned about this Mimi felt that if the documentary had a bad ending, it would challenge the viewer to do something about the situation.

What can I really do? I suppose writing about the meeting and posting it online is a start. The other thing would be to support the screenings and encourage my friends to see the film as well.

The main issues that came up in the film were the ideas of people leaving the country in search of prosperity. They do not have a decent life back home, so are desperate to leave but they do not know what their walking into. Most of the girls are promised teaching, cleaning or waitressing jobs but are lured into the sex industry.

It’s like one big dirty secret – the girls stay quiet, the pimps control, the clients are the politicians and police officers. Everybody stays quiet as nobody wants to deal with the shame. As prostitution is legal in Turkey, they are not doing anything wrong.

The situation between rich and poor countries seems to be getting worse as most people want to become rich. We need to reverse the trend somehow as on the road to riches and diamond things, life can be extremely real destroying everything.

Mimi was able to tell this story by reading everything related to the story. She wanted to know how people were covering the story in order to get beneath the surface. She spoke with local journalists and ngos but got deeper into the story by contacting lawyers who worked on the cases related to the story. She got introductions and went along to shelters to meet some of the women who managed to get out of the game.

The story is about more than just the women but includes the traffickers, the pimps, and the politicians. This is beyond poverty and more about the relations of power.

“It’s not about giving a voice to the voiceless but giving people an outlet to share their story with the rest of the world”.

To find out more about the documentary film visit http://priceofsex.org/